


A place to lay his head

by Gumnut



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Brothers, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Art, WHALE SHARK
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28810626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gumnut/pseuds/Gumnut
Summary: Virgil finds Gordon asleep in a very unusual place.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	A place to lay his head

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by art on Tumblr by @thatkidwholikesthunderbirds

It took Virgil fifteen minutes and a final resort call to Thunderbird Five to find his fish brother. It wouldn’t be the first time he had to take a brother’s chute down to the hangars, but there had been very few occasions where he had to take Gordon’s.

Maybe upside down and backwards wasn’t so bad since it didn’t end up in the drink.

But speed was a necessity, so Virgil took a swim in his underwear.

Gordon had reported his return, but he had never appeared in the comms room and Virgil was on edge.

Four was in her hangar, floating quietly. He didn’t fail to notice an unreported dent on one side. Admittedly, the storm outside was rough and the idiots Gordon had been fishing out of the ocean off the coast of Fiji deserved every cutting snarl of profanity Gordon said under his breath. It shouldn’t be a surprise that there was extra motivation for such Grandma provoking language.

He didn’t see Gordon at first and his heart rate increased with his level of worry.

But then what he did see, sent that heart rate through the roof.

He wasn’t alone in the water.

A shadow rippled over Four’s yellow flank.

A huge shadow, blotting out the hangar lighting.

For a moment, Virgil’s heart stopped entirely, the image of a giant predatory shark caught in the tank with him was enough to age him several years. That thought was quickly followed by ‘Gordon stuck in the tank with a giant predatory shark’ was enough to snap him out of it.

Fortunately, it wasn’t a giant predatory shark.

Well, it was a shark. A huge shark that barely fit in the confined space and was only just able to move enough to circle around Four.

But Virgil knew enough, had spent enough time reading fish books to his kid brother to know exactly what kind of fish this huge behemoth was.

It was a whale shark.

Virgil slipped quickly out of its way as it made a tight turn around Four floating in the middle of the tank. This wasn’t the first time wildlife had followed their aquanaut home and got themselves caught up in the tank. The incident with the seal immediately came to mind. But this was definitely the largest animal.

It would have been an amazing sight if Virgil knew where Gordon was.

Darting around Four, climbing into Four and generally panicking more and more by the moment, still did not reveal his brother. Images that haunted him late at night and those times he had the torture of sitting in Two far above his little brother, unable to help, played across his mind, Gordon injured, dead or dying in every single one of them.

Hell, the fact he was hunting his little brother while wearing only his underwear should have been a magical lure to draw the man out simply to point and laugh at him.

The hangar was horribly quiet with only the lap of water and the distant howl of the storm outside.

The shark still had him nervous. Could a whale shark eat a human? His knowledge ran short there and he reached for his comms just as he caught sight of something on the shark’s back.

A hint of blue and yellow.

He was moving before his brain could form his brother’s name.

The shark eyed him as he approached, but didn’t move away, continuing on its slow and awkward circle of Four. But that was definitely a gloved hand hanging off the shark.

Gordon.

The shark did flinch away as Virgil reached up and grabbed his little brother off the back of the giant fish. He was sprawled lengthwise, a splash of alarming red on one thigh as he slipped off into Virgil’s arms.

Gordon was wearing his helmet and appeared asleep, his head lolling onto Virgil’s shoulder.

The shark kept swimming.

Virgil didn’t hesitate and dragged his brother down to the airlock at the end of the tank. This was where Four could interface properly with the Island, but his brother rarely hooked her up, preferring to let her float free so the module delivery system could snag her and move her to the module with ease.

Virgil suspected it was just so Gordon could go for a swim each time he launched.

In any case, it served a purpose of getting his brother out of the tank and heading towards the infirmary fast.

All thoughts of whale sharks slipped from his mind as he focussed on Gordon.

It took a freaked out Scott, a wide-eyed Alan and a very competent grandmother stitching up the hole in Gordon’s thigh for his fish brother to wake up.

“You were on the back of a whale shark.”

“A whale shark?”

“Asleep on the back of a whale shark in Four’s tank.”

“Is it okay?” The worry on Gordon’s face was genuine.

Virgil reached out and touched his brother’s arm. “Scott and Brains got it out of the hangar.” With some difficulty. It apparently didn’t want to leave and was still swimming around in the lagoon outside.

“Do we know where it is? It will need a medical check.” Virgil gripped that arm tighter as Gordon made to get out of bed.

“Brains says it appears okay. You can wait at least another twenty-four hours before you are venturing out of that bed and there will be waterproof protection over those stitches before you go anywhere near the water.”

Gordon glared at him. “You sound like Grandma.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

But Gordon ignored him. “Whale sharks aren’t whales, Virg. They’re a whole different kind of amazing.”

And Virgil was subjected to far more information on whale sharks than he would ever need.

He sat and listened like he always did. His hand did not leave his brother’s arm.

How Gordon ended up on the shark’s back, they never quite worked out, but several days later as Virgil helped his little brother down to the shoreline and into the water for a heavily supervised marine encounter, he watched Gordon reach out to the huge fish and brush a gloved hand across its head. Gordon mumbled something over comms but Virgil didn’t understand what he said.

The shark eyed the pair of them for a moment and that moment froze and imprinted itself on Virgil’s memory as an illustration of exactly how connected his little brother was to the sea.

He was a part of it.

A twitch of its head and the shark was moving, turning, and heading out towards the break in the Islands that protected their lagoon.

A swish of its massive tail and it disappeared into the blue.

Gordon muttered something more before swimming ever so slowly towards the shore.

Virgil shook himself and followed.

Once again awed by his little brother and the sea he loved.

-o-o-o-

**Author's Note:**

> Artwork can be found here - [Tumblr](https://gumnut-logic.tumblr.com/post/639964228591239168/shirubie-godsliltippy)


End file.
